Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
by qloudlet
Summary: Hermione is on her own, scared and in the dark. She has been by herself for so long her own voice startles her. Her memories are cloudy and her mind is exhausted. She wants to go home. If only she remembered where that was. Someone is looking for her. Someone who loves her. Someone who refuses to forget her. (dual posted on AO3)
1. Chapter 1

When Hermione Granger was a little girl, she was afraid of the dark. Now that she was an adult, that fear seemed small, out of reach. Like a book that had been put away and forgotten about. After the incident, it seemed as if she had rediscovered that book. It was old and dusty but familiar all the same.

There was a divide in her mind. A line between now and before. Before was flawed and trying. Back then she was fierce and determined. It was hard to think about before. The memories seemed murky like she was swimming in dirty water. Now things were different. Now she felt like she was suffocating. She was no longer fierce. No longer determined. She did not feel the need to fight for anything anymore. She felt like there was something wrong with her, something broken inside. But as hard as she tried, she could not fix it. Eventually, she stopped trying.

She had friends once, before the incident. Harry, she remembered, was her best friend. She remembered having a friend named Ron as well. She couldn't remember where she had met them.

When she tried to remember more all she saw was the dark. It hurt her head, and as time went on, she thought of them less and less. Hermione thought that perhaps she had once remembered more, before the incident. Perhaps that had all changed. Perhaps her memories had been fading, one by one sinking her further and further into the dark. The dark scared her. She could hear whispers sometimes. And yet she knew she was alone.

She had been for days, months maybe years. Hermione paused, wondering how long she had been in her cell. Could it have been years? Her memories were unreliable and when she thought too hard her head would hurt. She remembered hearing laughter. Had she laughed, before the incident? Hermione didn't think she had ever laughed, she certainly didn't remember the feeling. She remembered being more than she had become.

The knowledge that she was trapped, fragile and broken and endlessly alone suffocated her. She knew she was a shell of who she used to be.

Hermione sighed, her thoughts swirling. What had her reality become? What had it once been?

She put her hand against the wall, one of four that she had been a prisoner in since the incident.

Hermione opened her eyes, then closed them again. Her head ached. She felt as if she had been crying for days. Maybe she had been, maybe she'd been crying for months. Had she been crying? Had she-

Her thoughts were cut off by a voice

"Lookin a little peaky, aren't you love?"

Hermione turned her face towards the wall, covering her ears with her hands. She didn't want to talk today. She knew talking was pointless. As pointless as remembering. There was no one there. Just her. Left alone with her thoughts.

Hermione curled up and fell asleep.

She was woken by the sound of her food being shoved through the slat in the door. She blinked at the light. Then it was gone. She ignored the food. She was hungry, but then, she was always hungry. At some point, she had gotten used to the feeling of her stomach being empty. She was fed on a schedule, of that she was sure. But Hermione no longer had a solid grasp on time. She would reach for it and it would fall through her fingers like water. She thought she might be fed once a day or once every other day, or maybe once every two days? Most of her day was spent curled up asleep.

Hermione wished, for what she thought was surely the millionth time, that there was a window in her cell. So that she would have some grasp on reality. She sighed and stood up and was immediately hit by a wave of dizziness. She leaned on the wall as she waited for her head to stop spinning.

When it finally settled she walked towards where she knew her food would be in a tray on the ground. She sat cross-legged and felt along the tray until she found the roll. She brought it to her nose and sniffed deeply. It wasn't fresh, but it was the only thing they served that smelled like food. She put it aside to save for last and felt along the tray until she found the spoon. She felt for the bowl and sighed.

Another meal spent in this cell. Alone. She ate slowly, knowing she couldn't be sure when her next meal would be. It tasted like gruel. There was no other word for it.

When she was done she picked up the roll and the spoon and carried them back towards her corner. She always tried to save the spoons. They were plastic and had no other use than eating. Hermione had tried to break them to attempt an escape before she realized the door had a deadbolt and could not be picked. And once they were broken, they turned to dust. Now she saved them as a measure of counting time. She had had 60 at one point until one of the guards figured out what she was doing and took them away. Since then the highest she had gotten to was 24.

Hermione closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. She was suffocating. She was drowning. She was gasping for breath, screaming for help. No one could hear her. When was the last time she had spoken, she wondered?

Sometimes she would speak to the voices that she heard. She needed to speak needed to talk, needed to- needed to not be alone.

Hermione opened her eyes and stood up.

She needed to move.

She started walking the corners of her cell, pacing. Slowly, she increased her pace until she was jogging. She did this until she felt she couldn't anymore and then did some jumping jacks. Then some push-ups. Then some sit-ups. On it went until she had exhausted herself. She had to move her body when her mind stalled. When her mind felt like it was about to burst, she had to spend herself, had to put that energy somewhere.

Hermione sat back down in her corner, breathing heavy. Her body was tired, her mind was beyond exhausted. She fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

When Hermione was a little girl, she had a snowglobe collection.

Whenever she traveled she would get one to take home. Something about them drew her in. A whole world inside a little globe. She would try to find the most unique ones she could, the most detailed. She had a special shelf dedicated to her many snow globes. Eventually, she had two special shelves. Every once in a while she would walk over to her shelf and pick one up. She would hold it in her hands and look at it, the calm before the storm.

Then she would shake it.

She loved to watch as the snow whooshed around the globe before finally settling down. She wondered what it would feel like to live inside a snowglobe. She was only a young girl at the time, still afraid of the dark and such things piqued her curiosity.

She was a very curious child.

Hermione no longer wondered about snowglobes.

And yet, meeting Draco Malfoy was like being picked up and shaken by an over-eager child.

She was going about her day the usual way, sleeping through it only to be wakened by voices. They seemed eager today and her head pounded as she tried to drown them out with her own bitter thoughts. She was interrupted by a sudden light as a tray of food was shoved through the slat in the door. She was plunged into darkness once more.

"Hungry, hungry, hungry"

Hermione closed her eyes and counted to twenty.

"You can't ignore me, love"

Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP. "SHUT UP," Hermione breathed out, then paused, momentarily shocked by her own voice. She sounded brittle, but also older. She remembered hearing her voice before and she had sounded younger, less burdened. When was that? She spent a few seconds trying to place the fragmented memory before giving up and crawling towards the food.

She ate as she always did, hesitantly, and then took the spoon and put it with the rest. She kept them beside her in what she considered "her corner". It was the left-back corner of her cell, where she slept and spent most of her days. She took a minute to count her spoons. She had 13. Hermione knew that the guards knew she collected them because every once in a while one of them would come in and take them. She used to try to hide them with her body, but one time one of the guards noticed she was hiding them and shoved her across the room so hard she hit her head. She woke up a couple of hours later, her head sticky.

After that, she stopped hiding them.

Hermione _before_ might have done something to stop them. Fight or scream or anything-something. But Hermione _now _was not a fighter. She didn't think she was capable of screaming, not anymore. She didn't have it in her to fight. She knew she was physically weak, although she did her best to exercise whenever her mind got too overwhelming. Which was quite often.

She was thinking about who she used to be when the door suddenly swung open. Hermione cringed away at the light.

"Hermione?" Hermione froze. That was her name. She was sure of it.

A blond man came into her cell and Hermione backed as far into her corner as possible.

"Oh thank Merlin, Hermione. Come on, come with me." The man frowned when Hermione didn't react.

"Hermione?" The man took a step closer to her and Hermione shrank back.

"Hermione, I'm here to get you out."

"Who are you?" Hermione whispered. She did not know this man but he was looking at her like he knew her.

The man crouched down in front of her.

"It's Draco. You don't remember me?" Hermione shook her head. "At all?" Hermione shook her head again.

The man looked as if she had struck him before his face smoothed over only to be replaced by an expression of urgency, "You have nothing to fear from me, I'm here to get you out of here. Don't you want to leave?"

Hermione glanced around. She did want to leave. But could she trust this man? Her brain went into panic mode as she considered her options. She could stay, and continue to live in this hell, most likely die here. Or she could leave with a stranger whom she did not know. Maybe Hermione from before knew him? Did she trust him? Could Hermione now trust him? Did trust matter if it meant freedom? No, she supposed, it didn't. She didn't really have a choice. She would go with him.

"Leaving are you, love?" Hermione closed her eyes. Would the voices follow her?

"Hermione?" The man sounded desperate.

She nodded and he exhaled. She opened her eyes to a hand. She looked from the hand up to the man's eyes. They appeared ice grey and shadowed. She wondered briefly what color they would be in the light.

She took his hand and he pulled her up.


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione was not sure of where she was or where she was going. She wasn't sure who this man was, this man who held onto her like he never wanted to let go.

As they ran, Hermione's brain worked in overdrive trying to fill in the blanks. The halls seemed to blur together and she couldn't figure out how the man knew where he was going. She wanted to ask but she was busy trying to stay conscious through all the sudden movement she was putting her body through.

She stumbled and he caught her for the third time. She could tell he was anxious about this "escape" but he attempted to slow his pace to hers, which was probably hard because she was going slower and slower. Hermione wanted to tell him that she couldn't go any faster but when she opened her mouth to speak she realized her mouth was completely occupied trying to bring air into her lungs.

"Keep going, we're so close, just a few more steps" the man pleaded with her, then when he turned and saw her face his eyes widened and he slowed down. He stopped them and looked around, once more glancing into her eyes before scooping her up bridal style and running again. Hermione leaned against him and closed her eyes. This was too much for her to handle and she fought to stay conscious.

"Where...where are we..." she tried.

"Shhh shhh it's okay you're safe. I'm taking you home"

Hermione nodded and closed her eyes.

When Hermione was a little girl, she had a canopy bed, complete with purple screens that flounced about when the window was open and a matching bed set. Sleeping in that bed made her feel like a princess and she was sad when she outgrew it.

Waking up, Hermione was momentarily confused to see purple screens around the bed she was lying in. Blinking, she sat up, then immediately lay back down when she started to see spots. Was she in a memory? She closed her eyes tight then opened them again. Nothing had changed. The purple was a different shade then the one she had as a child and the bed was much larger, obviously meant for a full grown adult, or three of them.

Hermione stared up at the ceiling feeling extremely disoriented. How did she get here? She vaguely remembered running and a blonde man who seemed to know her. She crawled to the edge of the bed and brushed the screen back. For a moment she was shocked by the texture of the screen. It felt like she imagined a butterfly's wings might feel. With that thought she felt the sheets of the bed she was on. They were smooth, unblemished. She knew this texture, or had known it in a previous life. Her brow furrowed as she tried to place it. Silk. This was silk. Silk meant wealth, especially purple silk. Hermione sat on the edge of the bed and pushed back the screen.

She started when she realized there was another person in the room. It was the blonde man. He was sitting on an armchair a few feet away from the bed and he appeared to be asleep.

Looking around the room, Hermione was shocked at the fancy decor and more so at how homey it all felt, obvious wealth and all. The room was fairly large, and whoever designed it clearly loved purple. The walls were a lovely shade of lavender, there was a dresser with purple knobs and a desk with a purple stone desktop. Hermione stood slowly and noticed the carpet felt wonderful beneath her feet. She passed the sleeping man and walked around the bed. There was a table with chairs surrounding it on the other side of the room and lamps all throughout the room set on dim.

As she stepped slowly around the room Hermione noticed something abnormal. She could smell something. It was a pleasant smell and it made her realize she was quite hungry. She glanced around looking for what smelt so good. Her eyes landed on the table, on which was a tray of tea and biscuits.

Her eyes widened and she stepped closer. Could she...

Hermione looked from the table to the man and jumped when she realized he was no longer sleeping but was regarding her curiously.


End file.
